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Delaware House lawmakers have approved a bill to significantly expand the state\u2019s medical marijuana program<\/a> ahead of the launch of adult-use sales that may take another year to implement.<\/p>\n At a meeting of the House Health & Human Development Committee on Wednesday, members took public testimony and then voted to pass the reform legislation from Rep. Ed Osienski (D).<\/p>\n The bill would make a series of changes to Delaware\u2019s medical cannabis program, including removing limitations for patient eligibility based on a specific set of qualifying health conditions. Instead, doctors could issue marijuana recommendations for any condition they see fit.<\/p>\n Osienski, who also sponsored a pair of complementary adult-use legalization and regulation bills<\/a> that Gov. Jay Carney (D) allowed to become law without his signature last year, said on Wednesday that the medical cannabis legislation will allow the program \u201cto be more successful as the state moves forward with recreational sales, and to make it less expensive and easier for patients to access medical marijuana.\u201d<\/p>\n Here are the key provisions of HB 285<\/a>:<\/strong><\/p>\n Rep. Eric Morrison (D), vice chair of the committee, thanked the sponsor for introducing the bill and said that expanding medical marijuana access \u201cis the right thing to do.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI do believe that, in terms of medical cannabis, that should be a decision between the doctor and the patient,\u201d he said. \u201cI can\u2019t imagine who would know what that patient needs and can use and will help them more than the doctor and the patient.\u201d<\/p>\n Olivia Naugle, senior policy analyst for the Marijuana Policy Project (MPP), provided written testimony in favor of Osienski\u2019s bill for the hearing<\/a>, stating that it would \u201cprovide several important improvements to Delaware\u2019s medical cannabis program that would expand patients\u2019 access to the medicine that they need.\u201d<\/p>\n She pointed out that the removal of the qualifying condition requirement would align the state\u2019s medical cannabis rules with that of any other medication that doctors have discretion to prescribe \u201coff label.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cDoctors should be given the same deference to their medical judgment with cannabis,\u201d she wrote.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, licenses for recreational marijuana businesses are not set to go out until September, meaning it could take until 2025 before storefronts open.<\/p>\n Last year, after the passage of his two legalization measures, Osienski gave advice to lawmakers in other states who are pushing for marijuana reform<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cThe key was just to keep plugging away at it and see what the other states have done and see what works best for your state,\u201d he said in May.<\/p>\n He also advised\u00a0legislators to sit down with \u201caffected state agencies\u201d like the Departments of Health, Finance and Agriculture.<\/p>\n \u201cWe had to sit down through meeting after meeting to try to work out a lot of the issues,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u2014 It took several years to get the job done, however, as the governor vetoed his earlier legalization bill in 2022<\/a>, which Osienski said \u201creally killed our progress on that regulation and taxation bill\u201d for that session.<\/p>\n He also said that there was \u201ca lot of pressure from the existing compassion centers that dispense medical products,\u201d as well as \u201cpushback from the patients\u201d who have been dissatisfied with the cannabis availability in dispensaries and \u201ccertainly did not want to see them dispensing their products for recreational users when they were still struggling for their medical needs.\u201d<\/p>\n The lawmaker said at the time that he understood those concerns and would be \u201cmore than willing to run legislation that will be beneficial to patients and to compassion centers to help generate more products that we\u2019re going to sell to the patients that are in need.\u201d<\/p>\n The new medical cannabis expansion bill, HB 285, doesn\u2019t address product production, but it will nevertheless offer more patients access to the system.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, the Delaware Senate separately approved a resolution last March that urges the state\u2019s congressional representatives to support legislation to end federal cannabis prohibition<\/a>.<\/p>\n In 2022, Carney vetoed a more narrowly tailored bill<\/a>\u00a0that would have clarified that medical marijuana patients are not prohibited from buying, possessing or transferring firearms under state law.<\/p>\n States Have Expunged Over 2.3 Million Marijuana Records Since 2018, NORML Report Shows<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n<\/div>\n Photo courtesy of Mike Latimer.<\/em><\/p>\n The post Delaware House Committee Approves Bill To Significantly Expand Medical Marijuana Program Ahead Of Adult-Use Sales Launch<\/a> appeared first on Marijuana Moment<\/a>.<\/p>\n
Delaware House lawmakers have approved a bill to significantly expand the state\u2019s medical marijuana program ahead of the launch of adult-use sales that may take another year to implement. At a meeting of the House Health & Human Development Committee on Wednesday, members took public testimony and then voted toContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":458,"featured_media":71562,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[18,81],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71561"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/458"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=71561"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71561\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":71563,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71561\/revisions\/71563"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/71562"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71561"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71561"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71561"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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\nRead More: Delaware House Committee Approves Bill To Significantly Expand Medical Marijuana Program Ahead Of Adult-Use Sales Launch<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"